PCT international application number PCT/US98/27374, filed Dec. 23, 1998, and designating the United States, PCT international application number PCT/US99/08768, filed Apr. 21, 1991, and designating the United States, U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/399,122, filed 30 Jul. 2002, and U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/426,792, filed 18 Nov. 2002, are incorporated herein by reference. The first incorporated application discloses an energy minimization technique for classification, pattern recognition, sensor fusion, data compression, network reconstruction, and signal processing. The incorporated application shows a data analyzer/classifier that comprises using a preprocessing step, an energy minimization step, and a postprocessing step to analyze and classify data. In a particular embodiment, the energy minimization is performed using IDMDS. The second application discloses a technique for merging ordinal data. In a particular embodiment, the merging process is performed using unconditional or matrix conditional, non-metric (ordinal) IDMDS. The third incorporated application discloses a modified energy minimization technique for improved and expanded classification, pattern recognition, sensor fusion, data compression, network reconstruction, and signal processing. The third application additionally discloses a meaningful scale conversion and aggregation process for intermixed scale type data. The fourth incorporated application discloses a 2-phase technique for scale conversion and aggregation of possibly intermixed scale type data.